Archive for May, 2010

Shashi got married today. DS and I went to Marin to watch the ceremony. I didn’t know if I should give them a vase (cost $0 since it would have been recycled) or cash ($101). At 11 pm yesterday, I found there was no good wrapping paper, so $101 it was. It was a weird experience. I met quite a few folks I knew from when I lived there and I felt as out of the group as always. Only this time, I didn’t care. Sweet DS kept me great company. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. DS can unfortunately be quite boring, esp when he gets started on cars. I was descending into judgement – no scratching! no talking! speak softly!! – so I’m glad we got out of there when we did. Then we went to see 222 house. There was a house for sale in that cul-de-sac – $549,000!

40th day of at least one post a day. I started this practice on the same day as I started the Vimala Alphabet practice. Today marks Day #40. Leo B says this number is the threshold for establishing a habit. Vimala R concurs. The Hanuman Vrat also is a 40 day practice. I’ll need to find the importance of the number. I’m really glad to have made it through 40 days for the Letter P, the letter of the day and this blog.

Talking about Letter of the day – when asking which attitude I need to work on today to grow in spirit, I received the letter Z – the letter of perfect contentment. I have never received this letter before in my > 50 days of writing. I really think it was waiting to come to me on the last day for P. This letter embodies the Serenity Prayer.

There’s been a crow visiting me causing concern. I looked up the symbolism of a crow and it’s a symbol of wisdom. I still can’t get over the niggling feeling that I amd wishfully thinking it so. The One for sorrow still governs my thoughts.

I hope I’ll get out of this mode where I’m constantly evaluating everything I see, do or read as potential material for this blog!!! It’s so painful and restricting – like hey, this looks interesting, what should I think about this that will make me so proud of myself a few weeks from now, instead of just letting the moment be. Please make it stop!! I’ve heard Adair Lara and Jon Carroll mention it, I really empathize with columninsts and folks who have to interact with them – you’d never know if you’re going to be the featured presentation in the paper on any day.

by Anne Tyler. It’s been a while since I read her work (2+ years I think). I still remember the deep joy I felt with the Accidental Tourist. This is not as powerful as that one. She’s writing about an immigrant family and I have issues with some of her immigrant experiences – “Does it feel like a permanent loss when you’ve moved from your native language?” – Um, no. Not in my experience. I liked that one part where the widowed father says he’d take care of a 6 year old for weeks 2 years away and then thinks to himself that he’d probably be dead, so it doesn’t matter. I was thinking about Jhumpa Lahiri when reading this book. In JL’s work, there are these phrases that you completely understand – Immigrants are like pregnant women, treated with a mixture of reverence and I can’t believe you are doing this. I don’t find the same level of sharp observation with AT, but I find the story itself far more captivating. So there – an amalgam of JL and AT and we’d have the most perfect writer. The funniest thing is that DS really likes this book. He normally starts off books I get, but never finishes them. This, he persists in. He’s going to ask Mr. Hancock what makes this book so compelling, there’s no single drama, no heroes or villains, not single point of view and yet it’s captivating.

My neck hurts!!! I have DS, DD and DH. None of them can knead a muscle worth beans. DS initially presses gently with his finger and then I say some more pressuer. He ends up digging in with his nails, which is then quit city. DD has not strength or perseverance. She loves to help, but this is one area she can’t be cajoled into helping with. DH is the worst, first he has to be cajoled, threatened etc to give a massage. Then he’ll do it with all his strength, which causes enormous pain. And then it’s quitting time. He did give me a massage without the drama one time. It was right after the Siva puja and Venkat/Padma stayed after all the guests left. I was wiped, and sitting next to Vittal, he gave me a nect massage for the longest time. So it can happen, it usually does not. Why won’t any of these people take some effort and do it well? Why can’t I just pay someone to get this? But the outsider is not working when I desp. need a massage.

So I see from my dashboard that I’m showing up on searches for Jayalakshmi Santhanam. And I thought it was a google search, and was really puzzled, how is this little thing showing up within the first 10 pages? I decided to test it myself. And of course it wasn’t anywhere to be found (so people must be searching within wordpress to hit this page..). But then I came across this treasure chest at http://www.aradhana.org/sampradaya/2010/. This is a program called Sustaining Sampradaya where master artists teach selected students kritis. The incredible generosity comes in making great sound quality recordings of these classes and posting them on this site. There are so many of these classes. I listened to Vinayaka Ninnu vina and was blown away by how the song is taught – how smart the students have to be to learn at that pace!! And mostly the students sound young. I couldn’t understand quite a bit of it, but as ever, I have hope and trust in the Snowball effect. Funnily enough, there’s no beating myself up for not being good enough. Thank you, Lord!! I’m so happy to be in this space at this time and be inspired by such generosity.

P.S. PV’s daughter was selected to be in this elite group. How wonderful for her!!

After the longest time, I happened upon Penelope Trunk, via of course Seth Godin. He interviewed with 100 influential bloggers to promote LinchPin and she was one of them. I used to read her newsletter ~2000. The only one I remember is about taking time off for the Jewish holiday to remember the dead. Now it’s a blog and I’m a sporadic visitor. The last time I was there, it was a post about how email was dead and social networking style messages were the next thing. I so disagree, but I’m a Luddite about social networking anyway. Anyway, the line that’s got me obsessing is Your privacy is over-rated. Your information is available to everyone anyway, so why fight a convenience. First reaction, Bullshit. I make the choice to give or withold information as I see fit. Just because it’s available after a search doesn’t mean that I should make it easy to access.

Wow Ryan! You’re my first commenter!! Many thanks 🙂 I have to admit I’m a bit nonplussed. I was counting on the vast cloak of web anonymity and simply the overwhelming number of blogs to keep my diary private without going to the effort of making it so. It’s all good, why would I say something in private that I’m not comfortable saying in public? Note to self : Don’t put words such as Perforce and BC if you are not positioning yourself to attract viewers! I seriously can’t think of any other way Ryan would have found this blog

With that interlude, the second reaction : What makes a piece of information private? SSN – yes private since it unlocks many financial portals. But address? Birthdate? Email? Preferences? Am I protecting this because of identity theft, or because it’s a habit and id theft is a convenient excuse to not change it? I’ve always given out bogus information when I could, but felt bad for the cruncher at the other end. I recall Adair Lara’s column from a long time ago – what’s your integrity worth – she was paying full price instead of child price for movie tickets for her child who was 13, but looked 10. It’s stayed with me for years now and is the question I ask myself – what’s my information worth – when I’m tempted to sign up for a “chance to WIN!!” (I’m thinking of you, kdfc 😐 ). It is worth a lot – hence the crazy valuation for FB and Zynga. But habit or not, I’m just not ready. I’ll hold my information clenched while trusting in the anonymity of the web to protect my own thoughts. Talking about easy – typing a blog is far easier than writing in a journal!